


let me return to try another life

by Galaxiaa7, mlraven



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, MIT Era, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaxiaa7/pseuds/Galaxiaa7, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/pseuds/mlraven
Summary: When T’Challa is born, his parents are pleased to see a Wakandan name on his wrist.





	let me return to try another life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ben_jaded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ben_jaded/gifts).



> This was written as a gift for ben_jaded, who's amazing and deserves to be showered with love.
> 
> ENORMOUS HEAPS of thanks to my wonderfulkickassamazing coauthor, Galaxiaa7, without whom this fic would not exist, much less be giftable.
> 
> If we fucked anything up, please let us know.
> 
> Title from [this Yoruba poem about a magical incantation for luck](http://africanpoems.net/gods-ancestors/incantation-for-luck/).

When T’Challa is born, his parents are pleased to see a Wakandan name on his wrist. The blurry letters are still too small to read, and will only sharpen as he ages. Ramonda quickly learns that the fastest way to soothe him is to trace the hazy letters, gentling T’Challa’s fussing into contented coos.

  
  
  
  


When T’Challa turns seven, the name becomes clear enough to read. It’s added to his database entry, and he starts to wear a cuff to cover it.

T’Chaka searches the national database for the name on T’Challa’s wrist, but doesn’t discover any matches. He doesn’t mention it to Ramonda; it’s technically against the rules for anyone to search for another’s match, even if that someone is the King.

He reminds himself that it’s still early days: Wakandan history tells of soulmates separated by years or even decades of age. T’Chaka stills his twitching hands and promises himself that he won’t peek again. No one will know of T’Challa’s soulmate before he comes of age.

  
  
  
  


Bast feels otherwise.

Several months after T’Challa’s seventh birthday, T’Chaka hears from an ecstatic N’Jobu, on assignment in America. He and his American soulmate have just been blessed with a son.

T’Chaka has known since they were boys that N’Jobu’s soulmate came from an English-speaking country. It was part of the reason he’d pushed so strongly to join the _Hatut Zeraze_ in the first place. Somehow, though, T’Chaka hadn’t thought about what might happen when his brother had children.

He swallows his frustration at the potential for Wakandan secrets to be revealed and congratulates N’Jobu. He sends blessings for strength of spirit and happiness, and asks what name he should add to the database.

When he hears the baby’s name, only decades of practicing diplomatic smiles are what saves him from revealing his true response.

When they hang up, T’Chaka puts the child out of his mind. He has seven years to come up with a solution for this problem.

  
  
  
  


By the time his son turns seven, N’Jobu’s contact with the palace is sporadic, at best. Still, T’Chaka waits on tenterhooks for the call, where he’ll have to lie about the name on T’Challa’s wrist. At least N’Jobu can’t access the database from outside their borders, even with his royal overrides.

N’Jobu calls, several months after the child’s birthday.

T’Chaka tells him, as he has rehearsed, that T’Challa’s name matches the River Tribe girl’s. Nakia and T’Challa are fast friends, always getting up to mischief together, and T’Chaka has no doubt this will be an easy lie to sell.

N’Jobu looks conflicted, but thanks T’Chaka for his time.

They don’t speak again until the night T’Chaka murders his brother.

  
  
  
  


When he leaves the child behind, he tells himself that it simplifies things. He rejects the creeping sensation in his stomach. It feels too much like guilt.

  
  
  
  


The first thing T’Challa does after his coming-of-age ceremony is to pull up the database on his Kimoyo beads. He had itched to do it during the celebration, but he restrained himself. He has permanent access to the search results for his mate, now that he’s seventeen.

When his search comes back empty, he frowns; the database should have returned a list of potential matches. The name is clearly Wakandan, and all living Wakandans are in the database. The empty result implies either that his soulmate has not yet been born, or that they died before their soulmark could be recorded.

He runs the search again, just to be sure, even though the database has been spitting out matches successfully since before his grandfather came of age. When he receives the same result, he goes to his mother for advice. She always knows what to do.

  
  
  
  


Ramonda comforts T’Challa, even as she agrees with his assessment. She suggests that he put it out of his mind, as nothing can be done until they hear a matching birth announcement. If his soulmate died in childhood, he may never know.

T’Challa suspects that Ramonda told T’Chaka, because suddenly he has three times as many lessons as he did previously.

When he asks, T’Chaka brushes him off, explaining the increased intensity as a natural side-effect of his growing responsibilities.

T’Challa is skeptical, but between studying languages, economics, foreign policy, diplomacy, trying to stay ahead of Shuri in engineering, and accompanying T’Chaka on international trips, he doesn’t have any time to investigate.

  
  
  
  


At first, T’Challa checks the database regularly, anxiously anticipating the chime signalling a match. After several years of only the low gong denoting No Results Found, his searches become more sporadic.

Eventually, he limits himself to once a year, on his birthday. Every time he hears the gong, it feels like something inside him withers.

Best to minimize his exposure.

  
  
  
  


When he’s twenty-six, T’Challa persuades T’Chaka to let him study the West in their own environment. He goes to Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, ostensibly to study diplomacy and international relations.

In reality, he learns much more than what’s on the syllabus.

He is consistently amazed (appalled, astonished) by the American perception of Africa as monolithic, poverty-stricken, and helpless. He regularly leaves his classes fuming, going immediately to the sanctuary of his apartment, furnished like home, complete with a reinforced punching bag in the spare bedroom.

After one particularly-frustrating class, his apartment set-up isn’t enough and he goes looking for a local gym. He’ll have to be careful not to call attention to himself, but it will be good to spar against something that hits back.

He ends up at a boxing gym in neighboring Somerville, in a plaza with a run-down video rental store and a 7-Eleven. The gym’s equipment has seen better days, but its occupants don’t stare at him as if they expect him to rob them, so it’s good enough.

T’Challa spars with several young men, pulling his punches and itching for a real fight. When he offers his hand to the third man he’s knocked down, the man takes it, groaning slightly as he stands up.

He rolls his neck and shakes out his arms, watching T’Challa shrewdly. He seems to make up his mind, because he turns his head, calling, “Hey, Erik.”

T’Challa follows his gaze to a young man with dreads, muscles shifting under his gleaming skin as he works a bag.

At the sound of his name, the man pauses, putting a hand on the bag to steady it.

“Whatup,” he calls back, turning around.

T’Challa’s last opponent jerks his head at T’Challa. “Might have a guy for you,” he says.

Erik’s eyes narrow as they sweep over T’Challa’s body, assessing. T’Challa feels his gaze prickle up the back of his spine, almost as if Erik is running a finger over the knobs.

T’Challa smiles, ignoring the odd feelings.

“...A’ight,” Erik says, tossing his towel aside and prowling closer. He jerks his head toward the empty ring in the center of the room. “For real?” he asks.

T’Challa nods, rolling his neck and fixing his wrist wraps. Seems like this might be closer to a real challenge.

  
  
  
  


To their surprise, they’re evenly matched. For every right hook T’Challa throws, Erik has a leg sweep to counter. For every feint Erik tries, T’Challa seems to anticipate where the real punch is aimed.

T’Challa dumps Erik on his back, but before he can follow him down, Erik’s back on his feet, slipping out from T’Challa’s attempted pin. Erik almost gets T’Challa in a headlock, but T’Challa uses his momentum to flip him over his shoulder.

And so it goes.

After a grueling half-hour, they’ve attracted a crowd. As the home favorite, Erik has the bulk of their support, but several onlookers seem to be impressed enough with T’Challa to switch sides.

When the monitor interrupts, he actually apologizes. Everyone’s enjoying watching, but there’s a youth class starting five minutes ago, so he has to ask them for a temporary truce.

T’Challa is beaming as they break apart, offering Erik his wrapped fist to bump in lieu of a handshake.

“I’m T’Challa,” he offers, missing Erik’s flinch when he says his name. “I hope we can do this again in the future. Do you come here regularly?”

Erik forces himself to breathe normally, ignoring the sudden swooping in his belly, as if he’s just fallen over a cliff and gravity’s taking its time catching up. He glances down at his wrist, reassuring himself that his soulmark is hidden behind his wraps.

There are plenty of people named T’Challa in the world. The likelihood of this being _his_...

“Uh, yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “I’m here every Monday through Saturday, when I’m not at school.”

T’Challa’s eyes light up. “I’m also a student, at Harvard! Where do you study?”

Erik’s gaze shifts off T’Challa’s open face, watching the regulars roll their eyes behind him.

“Uh, I’m at MIT,” he mutters, shifting from foot to foot. He wills T’Challa to pick up on the discomfort he’s intentionally projecting and leave him alone.

He’s unhappy to note that there’s more than a kernel of truth fuelling the projection. He needs to leave, needs to get far away from that earnest face.

He has a plan. He can’t be distracted by anything, even someone who coincidentally shares his soulmate’s very unique name.

Unfortunately, T’Challa is oblivious to the signals he’s putting out. As T’Challa unwraps his hands, he explains how he’s the son of a South African diplomat, at the Kennedy School to study international relations.

Erik can’t restrain an eyeroll. This kid won’t learn shit in those mahogany-paneled eating clubs they call a university. Before he’s fully thought it through, he finds himself offering to show T’Challa around Boston. There’s something about him that _pulls_ at Erik.

“Hey, why don’t we grab coffee sometime? I can show you the _real_ shit you need to know; that you won’t see in your classroom.”

As T’Challa smiles, Erik calls himself _foolish-idiot-stupid-what-were-you-thinking_ in each of the seven languages he speaks.

Maybe they’ll be done after one coffee date, he tells himself.

It sounds hollow even in his head.

  
  
  
  


Almost against his will, Erik finds himself sucked up by Whirlwind T’Challa.

At first it’s because T’Challa is so optimistic that Erik can’t help but boggle at his naivete. His idealism is both ludicrously out-of-place and oddly painful to see. He can’t help but argue; T’Challa’s world sounds like a fantasy-land. Like his father’s homeland. He ignores the tingling at his wrist and doubles down in the debating.

T’Challa finds Erik fascinating. He’s full of anger, breathtakingly-deep pain lurking behind his eyes. For someone so shrewd and calculated, though, he seems completely taken in by T’Challa’s Bambi act. So T’Challa plays it up, trying to see how far he can go before Erik sees through him.

And he enjoys their debates, enjoys listening to Erik’s fiery defense of Malcolm X, enjoys arguing about where the line between pacifism and submission sits. So he lets Erik pull out statistics, videos, oral histories of the Black Panther Party.

Their coffee dates become dinner, studying, watching television together on Erik’s cramped couch. Sparring regularly, learning each others’ bodies in a very specific setting.

Slowly, Erik watches T’Challa’s awareness increase. As he begins to overtly incorporate the realities Erik has shown him with his optimistic vision for the world, Erik feels something twinge in his chest.

He ignores it. He doesn’t have time for any— anyone.

  
  
  
  


T’Challa asks if Erik will take him to Oakland, to show him where he grew up.

Erik’s surprised to hear himself agree.

  
  
  
  


Oakland is… enlightening.

It almost feels tangible; like he’s watching the theories and archival material previously held at arm's length actually solidifying into true awareness in T’Challa’s sharp gaze.

T’Challa uses the trip to consolidate his knowledge of the world, but mostly he watches Erik. His gaze is drawn to Erik like he’s magnetic north. There’s something different about Erik here, on his home turf. He seems… more, somehow.

He watches Erik shooting balls into a netless hoop with a crowd of kids, helping an old woman carry her groceries. Something in his chest aches, knowing Erik isn’t his.

T’Challa observes the landscapes and interacts with the inhabitants, but he always returns to Erik. Erik sees something terrifyingly like _understanding_ in his gaze.

Erik feels… conflicted.

He cautiously hopes that T’Challa gets it now, that he won’t be another useless diplomat spouting empty promises and abandoning half-built community centers to crumble into dust.

At the same time, he’s terrified. He’s inadvertently revealed more of himself than he intended. Somehow, this rich kid he’s known less than a year has gotten under his skin enough that he feels itchy; restless at the thought of anyone knowing his vulnerabilities.

Even without mentioning his father beyond a glossed-over, “He was murdered; ‘s just life ‘round here,” or saying anything about the name on his wrist, now there’s something in T’Challa’s eyes that says _I know you._

The expression makes the hair on the back of Erik’s neck stand on end with a combination of adrenaline and anticipation.

Erik makes a detour to pick up a bottle of vodka on the way back to the ridiculously plush hotel T’Challa booked. T’Challa’s been unusually quiet today, and Erik suspects he’s in for a flood of questions once they’re alone.

So: booze.

  
  
  
  


The conversation isn’t as bad as he expected, though that might be because of the vodka before, with, and after dinner.

Erik listens as T’Challa synthesizes everything; pulling together the whitewashed international development language from his textbooks, Erik’s stories and statistics and examples, the oral histories and videos and photographs and writings of the communities in question, and T’Challa’s experiences today.

T’Challa feels the tension in his shoulder blades release as he finally allows himself to be open— or at least, as open as he can get, considering the circumstances— with Erik. He sees the satisfaction on Erik’s face as he speaks, and feels an odd hum under his cuff, where his soulmark lies.

Erik finds himself slinking low in his chair, gaze hooded as he watches T’Challa gesticulate passionately. There’s something warm curled up in Erik’s belly, a crackle of electricity from his wrist that spreads up his arm.

“Damn, I wish you was _my_ T’Challa,” he says, voice low. He blames the alcohol for loosening his tongue; it slips out before he can stop himself.

T’Challa stops mid-sentence, eyes wide.

In the back of his mind, the sober part of Erik is screeching. It’s drowned out by the electricity in his wrist, which suddenly sparks as if it’s trying to reach across the table.

Well, in for a penny.

“Hey, maybe you can help,” Erik tries for casual but misses, voice raspy. “How common’s the name ‘T’Challa,’ anyway? Ain’t heard names like that since my dad died.”

T’Challa takes a shallow breath, willing himself to stay calm. He doesn’t have ‘Erik’ on his wrist, no matter how much he might wish he does. Erik’s probably not even asking about soulmarks. He’s never revealed anything even half as personal as his soulmark before. There’s no reason to assume, and yet…

“‘T’Challa’ is quite the rare name, even in my country,” he says cautiously. Erik thinks he’s South African. He can’t reveal the truth, even to someone who makes him feel— “If I may ask, where else have you heard the name, or similar names?”

Erik considers T’Challa for a long moment.

It’s April, and he’s graduating in a little over a month. He’s shipping out immediately afterwards for his first tour, and he’s already been fast-tracked into the SEALs. If this goes sour, well, pretty soon he won’t exist.

Silently, he unbuttons the leather cuff around his wrist, revealing the Wakandan script. He extends his arm over the table, offering his wrist to T’Challa.

T’Challa sits, frozen.

“You can read this?” he asks, voice low.

Erik gives a sharp nod, arm still hovering over the table. “Dad taught me. He came from a place where they wrote like this.”

T’Challa’s mind races. If his father was Wakandan, perhaps—

“Did he give you another name?” T’Challa asks urgently, fingers twitching on the tabletop as he forces himself not to grab Erik’s wrist. “Like that one?”

Erik’s eyes narrow, and he yanks his arm back, cradling it to his chest. It sounds like T’Challa knows something, even though Erik’s been so careful not to even hint about his post-grad goals. If T’Challa is a Wakandan citizen, and he knows about Erik—

T’Challa sees the hostility in Erik’s expression and makes a split-second decision. If he’s wrong, Erik won’t have any way of finding him once he’s back in Wakanda.

T’Challa shoves up the sleeve of his sweater, unbuckling the vibranium bracelet he wears over his mark.

He thrusts it out, offering it to Erik almost desperately. “Are you—” he starts to ask, but Erik’s hand is suddenly wrapped around his wrist, cupping the mark, and he has his answer.

Something fizzes, spreading up their arms from where they touch. _N’Jadaka_ flashes gold on T’Challa’s wrist, light peeking out from under Erik’s fingers. T’Challa’s fingers find his matching mark, and Erik is overwhelmed with light.

T’Challa is babbling, something about how he thought he’d never find him, but all Erik can think about is that his plans to fulfill N’Jobu’s legacy will have to be amended. He never accounted for another person, much less his _Wakandan soulmate,_ but now that they’ve found each other, he has a feeling T’Challa’ll be hard to shake. Who knows, maybe he’s Erik’s ticket across the border?

Erik struggles for a moment, trying to suppress the euphoric static enough to think strategically, but the hum under his skin is too intense, especially when T’Challa cups his cheek.

_Fuck it._

Kissing now; world domination later.

 

 


End file.
